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Before loading up Iron Crypticle from Tikipod and Confused Pelican I didn’t do any research hoping to be surprised. When I first loaded the game up I was a little worried that it’d be just a hokey indie game with little replay and a boring story. Happily I was completely wrong! Iron Crypticle starts off with a story that most of todays gamers can relate to which is a group of knights got lazy and let the treasure they were guarding get stolen and now they are on a mission to get it back.

The game brings you back to the age when gaming was actually hard. There are no checkpoints or lives, you only have hearts. You start off with 3 hearts and earn XP and power-ups to help you get through the levels. This has been one of the more fun yet frustrating games I’ve played in a while. You’ll want to throw your controller at the TV and after you’ll re-load the first level to try and get through the dungeons. It takes hard to a whole new level. While I was able to make it to the second dungeon on “normal” difficulty i was only able to make it slightly further on “easy”. Now this could just be me, but damn it’s hard

Iron Crpticle starts you off by literally throwing you into the first floor of the dungeon. The first room you’re in is essentially your instruction room. The floor literally has a picture of your controls which, if you didn’t look in the menus before you started, is your tutorial. Moving into the dungeon you’re given a map which will help you navigate through to the boss level but doesn’t help you see what’s waiting unless you find a map throughout your travels. There are a handful of different types of rooms throughout the dungeons. Regular, randomly generated with standard enemies. The Catacombs are full of skeletons and fire demons/monsters/jerks.

The Grave Yard is full of zombies and un-killable ghouls that will chase you around. There are also “Ambush” rooms where you fight a handful of waves of enemies. Also mixed in are the Arcade rooms where you can play the mini game “Castle Crushers” which is a fun little side scroller. This is actually important for later in the game where you’ll potentially run into the “Store” where you can buy upgrades. Then there are the bosses. From my count there are at least four different end “floor” bosses that you’ll need to fight and each have their own difficult weapons. Though when you beat them they explode in a wave of loot which is a big help to prepare you for the next level. Finally after you make it to a certain point in the game you’ll unlock Endless mode which is exactly that, you can kill monsters, collect loot, lather rinse and repeat to your hearts content!

A download code was provided for this review by the developer/publisher

8.4100

Gameplay9

Graphics8

Audio7

Replay Value9

Value for Money9

Iron Crypticle

All-in-all this game is great, if you don't like the retro-feeling games, or are scared of games that don't have checkpoints or lives then stay away but for the price the game is worth it! One slight negative I could find was the audio, I never really found anything special about it and could almost play the game with no sounds and get the same experience. That's not saying it's not good it's just negligible. Achievement hunters take note, there will be a bit of grinding that will need to be done for the achievements like "Gold Grabber" and "Master at Arms" could take a bit.